Thousand Oaks looks to refund utility customers

City Hall isn't always sitting on a pool of money with no place to go.

But after an annual review, Thousand Oaks officials have found nearly $7,000 of overpaid water bills. The city hopes to find their payers.

"These are payments that have been sitting in closed accounts for three years or longer," said Melissa Hurtado, revenue operations manager for the city.

Customers have until April 22 to file a claim about overpayment. Unclaimed money will go to the city's water fund after the deadline.

Most of the overpayment occurred because residents moved away but continued to pay into their old utility accounts.

Seventy-five names of residents and businesses that need to claim their payment are on the city's website. The credit balances range from $16 to $680.

"In some cases, people have moved away and are not paying utilities where they are living," Hurtado said. "For the businesses, in some circumstances the business has closed, and the owner will come in, and we'll straighten things out."

Hurtado said the city has tried but failed to contact the people on the list.

"Unfortunately, some of these are e-payments that they might be thinking is linked to a new account, but it's actually with an old or closed account," Hurtado said. "In most cases, those are resolved before it gets to this point, but when they move out of the area, we don't necessarily have a way to contact them."

The list of customers owed refunds and a claim form are at http://www.toaks.org. For more information, call 449-2201.